First a summary (mainly based on Buchanan’s book, in italics, page numbers refer to it) of the events that lead to the breakout of WW1. Although it is true that the war itself was a result of a chain reaction after the assassination in Sarajewo, there were a lot of factors that additionally enabled he war.
p. xiii: Of all the empires of modernity, the British was the greatest – indeed, the greatest since Rome – encompassing a fourth of the Earth’s surface and people.
Lebensraum, any one? Britain, always keen to pull a Monty Phyton on Germany ('
tomorrow ze wurld') already had
ze wurld in 1914.
p.xviii:
Why did Britain declare war on Germany, twice? As we shall see, neither the Kaiser nor Hitler sought to destroy Britain or her empire.
p. xix:
there is another reason I have written this book. There has arisen among America’s elite a Churchill cult… This Churchill cult gave us our present calamity… it was Churchill who was the most bellicose champion of British entry into the European war of 1914 and the German-Polish war of 1939.
It must be said that
president Barry Soetoro (or whatever his real name and place of birth may be, this kind of joke the US has become)
has send the Churchill statue back to Britain and said that Britain was ‘just another country’. This means that Britain will become ever more isolated which is good news for the rest of Europe, now united with a euro waiting in the wings to overtake the dollar, so we can deal with this Trojan horse once and for all.
p.xvi –
Was it truly necessary that 50 million die to bring Hitler down? For WW2 was the worst evil ever to befall Christians and Jews and may prove the mortal blow that brings down our common civilization. Was it ‘The Unnecessary War’?
The 19th century (after 1815) was a relative peacefull century where conservative governments ruled the European nations. The great destabilising event however was the unification of Germany in 1870. Germany did not look for expansion.
Britain in 1905 elevated it’s Anglo-Japanese treaty into a full alliance.
In 1904 Britain formed the entente cordiale with arch enemy France ending centuries of hostilities.
p.6 –
Unknown to the Cabinet and Parliament, a tiny cabal had made a decision fateful for Britain, the empire, and the world. Under the guidance of Edward Grey, the foreign secretary from 1905 to 1916, British and French officers plotted Britain’s entry into a Franco-German war from the first shot.
P7. –
Churchill never repudiated his own support of the entente or secret understandings… In August 1907, Britain entered into an Anglo-Russian convention, ending their 80 year conflict… The Great Game was over and the lineups completed for the Great European war. In the Triple Alliance were Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. Opposite was the Franco-Russian alliance backed by Great-Britain, which was allied to Japan. Only America among the great powers remained free of entangling alliances.
After the French defeat at Sedan and the abdication of Napoleon III a united Germany stretching from France to Russia and from the Baltic to the Alps had emerged as the first power in Europe.
Here is a map of the pre-WW1 situation (Poland, the ‘phoney’ official cause of WW2 does not even exist!).
Buchanan says that it was a major blunder of the German Kaiser not to prolongue it’s treaty with Russia in 1890. Russia had nowhere to turn to except France.
p.9 –
The Kaiser’s folly in letting the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia lapse can hardly be overstated. While Germany was a ‘satiated power’… France and Russia were expansionist. Paris hungered for the Return of Alsace. Russia sought hegemony over Bulgaria, domination of the Turkish Straits to keep foreign war ships out of the Black Sea, and to pry away the Austrian share of a partitioned Poland.
To sum it up: Germany was the least motivated to start a war. Although my Anglo opponents here do not want to hear it, this cannot be said of the other participants of the war:
France: wanted Alsace back
Russia: wanted Bulgaria, dominance over the Bosporus and a piece of Poland
Britain: from it’s policy of ‘Splendid Isolation’ wanted to destroy Germany (more on this later)
p.10 –
[The Kaiser] wanted only good relations with Britain… It was a British alliance for which [the Kaiser] strove all his professional life… Why did the Kaiser fail?... blame. But MacDonogh lays most of it on British statesmen and their haughty contempt of the Kaiser and Germany.
This same attitude can be observed from our Anglo friends here on the forum as well.
[To be continued]
